


This Will Not Be Our Future

by i_claudia



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Minor Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-10-10
Updated: 2010-10-10
Packaged: 2017-11-05 21:24:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,280
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/411167
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/i_claudia/pseuds/i_claudia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There’s already a blue smudge of smoke slung low and broad across the horizon when they ride up under the cover of damp pine trees and clouds.</p>
            </blockquote>





	This Will Not Be Our Future

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on LJ [here](http://i-claudia.livejournal.com/59580.html). (10 October 2010)

There’s already a blue smudge of smoke slung low and broad across the horizon when they ride up under the cover of damp pine trees and heavy clouds. They are a small group—even without the tell-tale Pendragon red announcing them Arthur hadn’t wanted to chance more than half a dozen knights in this sweep of Cendred’s lands. They’d left the main force behind on the edge of Camelot’s border for Merlin to summon if needed, if the rumours turn out to have truth at bottom. Arthur glances at Merlin, knows from Merlin’s grim face that Merlin’s also seen the smoke and has learned too much about violence now to ignore what it means. Even so, there’s a desperation in the thin lines around Merlin’s mouth that belies Merlin’s composure, betrays how much blind hope he’s still clinging to.

The hope proves devastatingly false the moment they round the last bend in the path and break out of the forest: Ealdor lies below them, its houses in ruins, its fields still smoking, charred black.

“Steady,” Arthur orders quietly, without looking away from the wreckage of the town, searching for any remaining danger. “Hold your formation; I want everyone on guard—Merlin!” Merlin’s broken away from the group, is thundering down the hill as fast as his abysmal riding skills will allow. Arthur raps out a curt, “Forward,” leading his knights at a trot through the dust Merlin’s kicked up.

More survivors than Arthur had expected emerge from under half-burned roofs and behind doors hanging crazily on torn leather hinges. Merlin’s already dismounted, hunting among those left and enduring their questions while he presses his own. Arthur, once he’s determined there’s no immediate danger, orders his knights to fan out and search for any clues or hidden traps the enemy might have left behind. 

They find nothing to prove what Arthur knows: that Ealdor was destroyed in order to hurt Camelot, in order to show that Arthur is powerless. He is meant to be angry, rash, to hit out without thinking and provoke an attack in response, one that will come to Camelot’s lands and wreak even greater destruction. He is meant to prove that Camelot’s young king is controlled by her new sorcerer, to prove his unworthiness to rule and so to lay his kingdom open for the taking. Arthur knows this, but it doesn’t particularly matter; he may be in full possession of his own will, but rage and guilt are still heating slowly within him, building beneath his skin. He isn’t sure he’s strong enough to avoid proving the enemies of Camelot right anyway.

He leaves the knights to help rig canvas over a few of the less damaged roofs and finds Merlin near the long, shallow trench where Ealdor had buried her dead after the attack. Arthur had asked a few discreet questions of his own, had slipped away to find the familiar house and found it ruined, empty but for gaping windows and cold ashes. Merlin doesn’t turn at his approach, doesn’t speak, and when Arthur draws level with him, he leaves, striding back toward the forest with his head down and his shoulders hunched. Arthur hesitates, watching him leave and wondering—but in the end he follows Merlin, trailing after him into the forest. He always does.

Arthur had expected Merlin to speak when they stop, paused in a clearing far into the thick pine forest, but Merlin’s long made a habit of breaking Arthur’s expectations. He turns to Arthur without words instead, fierce in his grief, and after only a moment or two of surprise Arthur moves with him, lies back willingly when Merlin pushes him to earth. Merlin is harsher than usual: his kisses more vicious, his hands and hips less patient, more desperate. Arthur lets him take, softens Merlin’s desolation with meaningless murmurs and soothing touches; he knows this despair too well, this inexorable welling-up of grief and the helpless craving it drives beneath the skin, the need to find meaning after the world’s crumbled down in its softest, most vulnerable places.

They lie together after, cushioned on the moss. Merlin is quiet, pensive, and Arthur runs his fingers through Merlin’s hair, waiting.

“It was because of me—of us, wasn’t it.” Merlin says at last, a statement of obvious fact.

_Yes_ , Arthur thinks. “It wasn’t your fault.”

“It was.” Merlin sits up, pulling away. “She—they had no warning; I should have known, should have tried to—”

“You couldn’t have known,” Arthur interrupts gently. “We’ve been working off of pure rumour and conjecture; there was no way we could have known exactly where or when—”

“I know, I know.” Merlin buries his face in his hands, tangling his fingers tight in his own hair. Arthur watches the way his shoulder curl in, the stretched line of his back, and thinks about Merlin, about this man who can will nature to obey him until the world cowers obediently at his feet, who has saved Arthur’s life and defended Arthur’s throne with his own blood more times than Arthur is comfortable thinking about, who still has a smile as guileless as the day he arrived in Camelot. There is nothing, Arthur realises, nothing that Merlin might ask of him now that Arthur would not move heaven and earth to do. The recognition isn’t as disconcerting as it should be—but, Arthur thinks, maybe it really isn’t all that shocking, in the end.

“We can never let this happen again,” Merlin says, turners back to look at Arthur.

Arthur sits up carefully at that, the iron note in Merlin’s tone making him wary. “All we can do is...”

“No,” Merlin says, implacable. “We can never let this happen again, my lord.”

Arthur straightens. Merlin’s never called him _my lord_ like this: there’s no teasing note, no hidden fond exasperation. There is only a determined call, a demand for Arthur to answer. “And how will we prevent it? There will always be someone else to challenge me; it’s the price of ruling, the price of being my father’s son.”

“Not this time. Not if you rule all Albion.”

Arthur sucks in a breath, looks hard at Merlin. Merlin meets his gaze steadily, and there doesn’t _seem_ to be any trace of madness there. “How would I even begin doing that? How, with no army but my knights and no resources to feed and maintain one nearly the size we’d need—”

“You don’t need that,” Merlin says. “All you need is me.” He stands as he says it, reaches his hand out for Arthur to take, and Arthur studies it, thinking. Merlin is still slender and bony at the corners, with awkward ears and elbows he’ll never grow into, but Arthur can feel the power banked within him, an _otherness_ pressing out that Arthur had never noticed until he’d known what to look for. The otherness grows now: wider, heavier, more overwhelming, until Arthur feels as if the entire world is drowning in it, until Merlin stands before him limned in light, proud and tall and golden-eyed, and Arthur... 

Arthur doesn’t want to say no. He wants this power, desires it badly. He wants Merlin, all of him, forever.

He reaches up, allows Merlin to pull him to his feet. “Are you sure?” The question is quiet as it falls from Merlin’s lips, deceptively unassuming.

Arthur isn’t, will never be. There are too many issues remaining, too much uncertainty to know what he’s doing is right, and Arthur _doubts_.

He says yes anyway, hand still clasped in Merlin’s, and just for a minute sees reflected in Merlin’s eyes the promise of glory and sacrifice to come.


End file.
